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evil? While Richards has been more direct, Jagger has often been coy, revealing only generic tidbits about “Sympathy,” such as the fact that he wrote the song in a Dylanesque manner, and embraced the role of the sophisticated “man of wealth and taste” rather than that of the beastly Anti-Christ. But there can be little doubt that Jagger was sincere in pointing to the political and cultural tragedies that his man of wealth and taste has been involved in. Nearly forty years later, in the song “Sweet Neo Con,” his grinning and assertiveness are still in full force:

You call yourself a Christian

I think you’re a hypocrite

You say you are a patriot

I think you’re a crock of shit

…

It’s getting very scary

Yes, I’m frightened out of my wits

There’s bombers in my bedroom

Yeah and it’s giving me the shits.

According to Jagger, the dangers of ideology are still in place, and he’s still pointing his fingers at us for being involved and allowing evil to happen. Unlike Augustine, who sees evil as only a lack of goodness and weakness of human will, Jagger sees evil in the strength of will and the resolve and confidence of humans that perpetrate it:

Just as every cop is a criminal

And all the sinners saints

As heads is tails

Just call me Lucifer

’Cause I’m in need of some restraint.

“Every cop is a criminal,” he sings—not that every cop is a good person who, occasionally, lets his guard down and is tempted, as Augustine might see it.

In Godard’s documentary “Sympathy for the Devil,” there is a segment titled “All about Eve,” in which the character “Eve Democracy” wanders through an idyllic landscape followed by interviewers. They pepper her with eloquent questions, to which she unfailingly answers only with a laconic “Yes” or “No.” One interviewer asks: “There is only one way to be an intellectual revolutionary, and that is to give up being an intellectual?” “Yes,” said Eve. Another asks, “Do you think that the Devil is God in exile?” “Yes,” she replies. Perhaps the follow-up question should have been, “Does the Devil, then, really live on Main Street?”

Under Our Thumb

Altamont, the free concert given by The Stones outside San Francisco on December 6th, 1969 is one of the great tragedies in rock history. Woodstock’s pre-eminence over Altamont in history and rock mythology may be a tongue-in-cheek sign that good does triumph over evil. Everyone learns of Woodstock soon after they reach the age of reason, but many people under the age of thirty, perhaps older, have never even heard of Altamont. Augustine might be surprised to learn about it, as well.

“Sympathy” is directly linked to Altamont, at least in the popular imagination. It’s often said, wrongly, that The Stones were playing “Sympathy for the Devil” when the eighteen-year-old Meredith Hunter was murdered by the Hell’s Angels. Yet eyewitnesses, as well as footage from the documentary Gimme Shelter, clearly show that The Stones had finished with “Sympathy for the Devil” and were onto “Under My Thumb” when the murder occurred. As Norma Coates pointed out in her essay “If Anything, Blame Woodstock,” the error is still being made.

Coates places the blame for Altamont everywhere, and not just on the Rolling Stones:

If anything, the spirit of the times and the concomitant burden placed upon the counterculture by the mainstream media as well as its own scribes was responsible for Altamont.55

This verdict is almost unique. At the time, most blamed the tragedy directly on Mick and the band. Rolling Stone’s coverage claims that on that fateful day Altamont was like “a decaying urban slum… . It was in this atmosphere that Mick sang his song about how groovy it is to be Satan. Never has it been sung in a more appropriate setting.”56 Before Altamont, The Stones and Jagger’s words were the center of attention; after Altamont, The Stones, and Jagger in particular, were considered ready for a penitentiary. Rolling Stone magazine included a caption under Jagger’s picture: “Is Mick responsible for the killing?”

I’m sure Mick would say no. But that’s not because